I began today with an offering from Germany called Nepal Initiative. It was a first flush organic black tea, so the leaves were the first harvested off that particular plant. I drank it with plenty of milk and some rock sugar as directed. Well, strictly speaking I was told add rock sugar. The plenty of milk was my particular touch because I’d taken yesterday off black tea – I always do when I’m under an attack of cramp.
Anyway, it was a lovely way to wake up, and it gave us the energy to survive this course we’ve started. It runs for six weeks and it turns out being switched on to Zoom for six hours every day is up there with parties that blare loud music in terms of circles of hell we would like the right to never visit again ever, thanks ever so much. But the tea helped. It was like being hugged awake and on a cold, winter morning, that was exactly what we needed.
Later in the day we switched over to DavidsTea, who have updated the perennial Forever Nuts with a light touch of marshmallow and renamed it Forever Frosty. Basically it’s the same tea but now it tastes of pink, which is always a bit of a weird feeling, mostly because pink doughnuts and the pink wafer are the only two things legally allowed to taste quite that shockingly pink. But that’s not to say we disliked it. The marshmallows do not, thank God, go to gloop in the infuser, so that was a revelation. (This has been an issue in the past; you’ve probably read the rants. We fully support whatever workaround David is using this time.) And they give Forever Nuts some of the ballast we have previously felt it was missing. So all told, this one is a win. Sweet, fruity, not too cloying. The sugar gives you a late afternoon lift but there isn’t any caffeine to contend with, making it good for anyone who struggles to sleep if they take caffeine past four o’clock.
And they both got us through a discussion on editing and editors. With that in mind, here’s the charmingly tongue-in-cheek I am the Flotz. Our grade 5 teacher made us learn it by rote years ago and we’ve never forgotten it. If only we had that kind of memory when it came to the important stuff!
The Flotz
Jack Prelutsky
I am the Flotz, I gobble dots,
indeed, I gobble lots and lots,
every dot I ever see
is bound to be a bite for me.
I often munch on myriads
of sweet, abundant periods,
I nibble hyphens, and with ease
chew succulent apostrophes.
From time to time, I turn my gaze
to little dotted “i’s” and “j’s,”
and if I chance upon a dash,
I soon dispatch it with panache.
I chomp on commas half the day,
quotation marks are rarer prey,
a semicolon’s quite a treat,
while polka dots are joys to eat.
When I confront a dotted line,
my tongue flicks out, those dots are mine,
Morse code becomes a feast, and yes,
I’ve snacked upon an S.O.S.
For I’m the Flotz, who gobbles dots,
I gobble them in pails and pots,
And you’ll not like my brief embrace
if you have freckles on your face.
Chorister at Home 